Supreme Court allows Trump administration to resume border wall construction in Big Bend region

Washington- The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to resume construction of a border wall and other infrastructure in a remote region of West Texas while litigation over the project moves forward.

In an unsigned ruling, the high court agreed to lift a district court’s injunction that temporarily halted construction of the wall and associated infrastructure in the Big Bend sector, which covers more than 500 miles of the southern border and includes Big Bend National Park.

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson said she would have rejected the Justice Department’s request for emergency relief.

In its five-page ruling, the Supreme Court said in part that the lower court’s order delays construction of the border fence and roads in the Big Bend region and “prevents the government from advancing its ‘compelling interests’ in border security and integrity.”

Opponents of the wall project “claim that construction in the Big Bend area will diminish their ability to use and enjoy the area,” the court said. “But Congress’s enactment (of the Immigration Act) – which allows the Secretary of State to waive the requirements of environmental and other conservation laws – reflects a clear preference for rapid border construction rather than the very harms defendants claim.”

The Center for Biological Diversity, one of the plaintiffs who sued to stop construction of the wall, blasted the Supreme Court’s decision.

“The Trump administration and its contractors are determined to destroy one of America’s greatest national parks, and the Supreme Court just gave them the green light,” Laiken Jordahl, the group’s national public lands advocate, said in a statement. “This horrific decision paves the way for contractors to bulldoze pristine deserts and dynamite canyon walls before the courts have even decided whether such destruction is legal. They are approving the permanent destruction of the wildest place in Texas and the theft of a great American river from all of us.”

The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court last month to enter the legal battle the border wall in the Big Bend region and argued that the shutdown ordered by U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone compromised its ability to combat illegal border crossings in the region.

Halting wall and road construction along this part of the U.S.-Mexico border would have serious consequences, Solicitor General D. John Sauer warned, including “disrupting the government’s ability to secure a quarter of the southern border against cartel incursions, drug trafficking and illegal entry;

But an environmental nonprofit, a professional riverboat guide and a religious organization, which filed a lawsuit challenging the project, argued that allowing the Trump administration to resume road and wall construction would permanently alter an “irreplaceable landscape” that includes Big Bend National Park, Big Bend Ranch State Park and nearly 200 miles of the Rio Grande Wild and Scenic River corridor.

“Once habitat is destroyed, vegetation cleared, historic resources damaged, livelihoods and private property destroyed, and wilderness landscapes fragmented by roads, barriers, and associated infrastructure, no final judgment can restore the status quo,” plaintiffs’ attorneys wrote in a Supreme Court filing.

President Trump has promised for more than a decade to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and has made the 30-foot barrier the cornerstone of his plan to combat illegal immigration.

To speed construction of the wall and other barriers along Texas’ southern border, Homeland Security Secretary — first Kristi Noem and then Markwayne Mullin — issued a total of three waivers for project areas in the Big Bend region starting in February.

The federal government generally should ensure compliance with federal environmental protection and historic preservation laws before proceeding with construction. But the Department of Homeland Security invoked a 1996 federal immigration law that gives the secretary the authority to waive any legal requirements deemed necessary to ensure “expeditious” construction of barriers and roads near the southern border.

In response to the ruling, plaintiffs filed a lawsuit to block the Trump administration from building new 30-foot bollard walls and other infrastructure in the Big Bend region. The waivers issued by DHS, they said, “would authorize massive projects that would cut through the Chihuahuan Desert, cut off public and wildlife access to iconic sections of the Rio Grande, and mark one of the final – and most important – steps toward completing the ‘Wall.’

Separated from the dispute, the wall planned by the president provoked reactions from Republican and Democratic lawmakers, cattle ranchers and local law enforcement in Texas when photos and videos shared on social media in August showed bulldozers arriving at Big Bend National Park.

In response to the backlash, Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott announced that construction inside the park would be suspended until the end of September. Scott said the proposed 30-foot border wall would not pass through Big Bend National Park, but other infrastructure would, including more than 200 miles of patrol roads and about 17 miles of a vehicle barrier system, according to CBP.

Construction of a 47-mile-long wall in Hudspeth County, part of the Big Bend region, began in September, according to immigration agencies.

But last month, Cardone, the district judge, granted a preliminary injunction barring the Trump administration from building border barriers or related infrastructure, or engaging in “any construction or land disturbance activity” in the Big Bend area.

Cardone found that the Secretary of Homeland Security had exceeded his authority in issuing the waivers allowing construction of the wall.

The Trump administration and opponents of the project disagreed over whether the Big Bend sector was an area of ​​“high illegal entry” requiring additional border barriers.

The government has argued that immigration agents apprehended more than 89,000 people attempting to enter the United States illegally in this area between 2021 and 2025.

But the plaintiffs said Big Bend ranks last in arrests compared to the other six sectors along the southern border. While the area covers more than 25 percent of the U.S.-Mexico border, annual apprehensions in the Big Bend sector ranged from 0.3 percent to 2.2 percent of total border apprehensions, according to court documents.